The Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Chair

Henry Aaron is currently Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Senior Fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. From 1990 through 1996 he was the Director of the Economic Studies Program. He is a member and vice-chair of the District of Columbia Health Benefits Exchange and is a member and former chair of the Social Security Advisory Board.

He is a graduate of UCLA and holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University. He taught at the University of Maryland from 1967 through 1989, except for 1977 and 1978 when he served as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. He chaired the 1979 Advisory Council on Social Security. During the academic year 1996-97 he was a Guggenheim Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the advisory committee of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and the board directors of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He has been a member of the boards of directors of the College Retirement Equity Fund and Georgetown University. He has been a member of the visiting committee of the Harvard Medical and Dental Schools and of the Harvard Department of Economics. He was a member of the board of directors of Abt Associates; a founding member, vice-president, and chair of the board of the National Academy of Social Insurance; vice-president and member of the executive committee of the American Economic Association; and president of the Association of Public Policy and Management.

Henry Aaron is currently Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Senior Fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. From 1990 through 1996 he was the Director of the Economic Studies Program. He is a member and vice-chair of the District of Columbia Health Benefits Exchange and is a member and former chair of the Social Security Advisory Board.

He is a graduate of UCLA and holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University. He taught at the University of Maryland from 1967 through 1989, except for 1977 and 1978 when he served as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. He chaired the 1979 Advisory Council on Social Security. During the academic year 1996-97 he was a Guggenheim Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the advisory committee of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and the board directors of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He has been a member of the boards of directors of the College Retirement Equity Fund and Georgetown University. He has been a member of the visiting committee of the Harvard Medical and Dental Schools and of the Harvard Department of Economics. He was a member of the board of directors of Abt Associates; a founding member, vice-president, and chair of the board of the National Academy of Social Insurance; vice-president and member of the executive committee of the American Economic Association; and president of the Association of Public Policy and Management.

The cost of health care is going to keep going up. It’s going to go up because we’re getting older and as we get older we use more health care and it’s going to go up because science is keeping on producing wonderful new things that physicians and hospitals can do. And they cost money. What we can do is eliminate the needlessly expensive way in which we now provide health care.

[Mitt Romney] belongs to a very conservative party that hates this [health care] bill, many members of which have sworn that they’d rather eat ground glass than let this law go forward. But there is the conflicting problem of, ‘If you break it, you own it.’ [He will own] anything that goes wrong with the health-care system down the road.

The Ryan–Wyden [budget] plan is not a plan. It is a press release, so vague in its description that it could mean many and quite different things. Given what Ryan has said in his latest budget proposal, I would be amazed if he and Wyden could come to agreement on legislative language.